Heroes fight for prairie dogs, ferrets and the American prairie

[InvisibleTouch]

Since 2005, wildlife-friendly ranchers and landowners in Kansas have fought the efforts of Logan County Commissioners to forcefully poison prairie dogs on their land -- a plan that would put highly endangered black-footed ferrets and other wildlife at risk.

I just wrote to these amazing wildlife heroes -- the Haverfields, the Barnhardts and Mrs. Blank -- to thank them for their hard-fought efforts to protect the American grasslands. You can, too! Just follow this link and take action:

http://action.defenders.org/prairiethanks

These dedicated folks have poured countless hours and tens of thousands of dollars in court costs to keep the Commissioners from forcefully poisoning prairie dogs on their land -- now they need to hear from wildlife supporters like us.

Tell these wildlife heroes that you support their efforts!

http://action.defenders.org/prairiethanks


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Can you imagine owning your own land, wanting to preserve it as a healthy ecosystem, and some government agency barrels in and wants to spread poisons? That's beyond outrageous.

[cliffordu]

1. Well....

:popcorn:

[havocmom]

2. poison is not a great way to deal with dog towns that get too big

eagles and hawks get killed along with the ferrets.

But, the dog towns do need to be shut down sometimes. Nature knows this and there are often plagues when the prairie dog populations get too dense. Sadly, if the dog towns are too close to people, there is a certain risk. Lead is a safer way to lower the population.

[malakai2]

4. A couple things

First things first, plague isn't exactly nature's way of controlling prairie dogs. Plague (Yersinia pestis) was introduced to North America around 1900 by shipboard rats in San Francisco. It then spread fairly quickly throughout the west from the Pacific to about the 100th meridian. Because the bacteria that causes plague is a fairly young species (~20,000-10,000 years since speciation), and because it isn't native to North America, its virulence in naive populations of susceptible critters can be very high. In prairie dogs, the disease is 100% fatal to exposed animals. Those that manage to survive do so because by chance they were not exposed to the bacterium. Those species that are more densely colonial, especially blacktailed prairie dogs (the most widespread species), often see a population decline on the order of 95% in the first plague incursion, followed by a diminishing stairstep pattern as the colony never quite reaches the previous numbers before the next plague incursion. Given that the current prairie dog acreage is on the order of 2% of historic extent, and that the only remaining large complexes of blacktails are on one National Grassland and three reservations in SD (two of these four are now plague zones), and on this chunk of private land in KS, it's a pretty big deal for plague to come in and knock any one of them into a death spiral.

What limited prairie dog density prior to extensive homesteading was predation by a full cast of critters, precipitation, and density-dependent effects such as intraspecies aggression (infanticide, cannibalism, that sort of thing). With the onset of fenced grazing, we've managed to alter several of those controlling factors. Top-down predator control with coyotes and badgers won't be as effective as top-down predator control with ferrets and swift foxes. High grass growth in years of high precipitation is no longer a limit to prairie dog expansion in the eastern part of their range because ranchers see that grass growth as an opportunity to hammer the hell out of their pastures with as many cattle as they can shoehorn out there. Density-dependent factors still limit how many prairie dogs can share an acre of land, but when landowners neighboring prairie dog towns graze or mow their fields down to a couple inches of stubble, they are essentially telling the prairie dogs on adjoining land "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses..." And of course, because we manage real property the way we do, there is no incentive for landowners to maybe cooperate and rest large chunks of pastureland for years at a time between intensive grazing sessions, to mimic bison disturbance patterns that historically helped shape and move prairie dog towns across the landscape. Not when they can turn a quick profit and socialize the long term costs with federally subsidized drought aid, forage aid, poisoning programs, and the like.

By the way, being in a prairie dog town during an active plague epizootic is not too terribly risky. I've done it myself for long stretches of time, simple precautions will keep anyone safe. What is risky is handling squirrels, mice, rats, cats, and dogs that have been in active plague zones and that may be carrying infected fleas, or worse (in the case of cats especially), that may be able to pass the disease directly to humans. Interestingly, the flea species in the United States are not nearly as effective as plague vectors as some of the east Asian flea species, so while flea bites are an issue, direct transmission through body fluid contact is more of a concern. Bites or scratches from potentially infected carriers in active plague zones need to be brought to the attention of a doctor immediately-not doing so can reduce the chances of recovery very quickly as the disease progresses. A biologist at Grand Canyon contracted plague while performing a necropsy on a mountain lion, apparently didn't mention the possibility of plague to his doctor when he was checked for flu-like symptoms a day or two later, and was dead three days after that. All that can be avoided, however, by not handling suspect animals. Notice that a lot of rats are suddenly dying around your grain bins, and you haven't been poisoning? Might want to have an expert check it out. Notice that your farm cats are all suddenly ill, acting listless, and maybe sneezing bloody mucous? Again, might want to have an expert check it out.

As for poisoning, it's an economic loser unless the town is entirely eradicated. This was somewhat effective during the early decades of the 1900's because the federal government threw ridiculous sums of money into indiscriminate poisoning campaigns across the plains using such extremely effective toxins as strychnine and compound 1080. In fact, the Biological Survey pimped poisoning under the guise of increasing the land's grazing production as a means to justify increasing it's budget. Those toxins are now illegal to use, and the newer toxins are less effective while also requiring extensive labor to pre-bait the zone to be poisoned to accustom prairie dogs to the bait. The reason states like Kansas have or had this home rule law on the books is because their legislature was dominated by the ag lobby from their inception as states, and the idea of "too many prairie dogs" is so ingrained in the local culture that children growing up there will without fail see prairie dogs' only real worth as target practice. Farmer Bob hears that neighboring rancher Joe has a few prairie dogs on his property, and he files a complaint because in his opinion, the only good dog is a dead dog, and he'll be damned if he's gonna give up one blade of grass to Joe's dogs. That's how many people out there see it...prairie dogs are not wildlife, they are someone else's property to be kept on the other side of the fence, and when those prairie dogs roam as they are programmed by evolution to do, the state steps in to protect Bob's property rights...by stepping all over Joe's property rights and billing him for the trouble.

Shooting is no great solution either. I've seen opening day on some of the national grasslands...some guys are good shots and careful with their aim, others not so much. Simple safety aside, not an insignificant number of shooters apparently have no problem taking shots at other wildlife as the opportunity arises...burrowing owls, jackrabbits, harriers, and so on down the list have been poached and left to rot just because they were there. As well, intensive shooting very quickly alters prairie dog behavior and can have as severe an impact on population size as intensive poisoning or even plague. Add that to poisoning and plague pressures on the remaining large complexes in South Dakota and Kansas, and I could very easily see the Fish and Wildlife Service listing black-tailed prairie dogs as threatened upon completion of the review they are currently conducting. If that happens, ESA provisions are going to severely limit poisoning and recreational shooting, and people are going to be forced to manage prairie dogs as wildlife until/unless a plague vaccine or natural resistance to plague can be found. I'm not holding my breath for a vaccine or natural resistance.

[havocmom]

5. living with them in close proximity, I get to observe some things

When they get too many, they get sick and have big die-offs. Plague is not just our own specific types and fears. If you are in a dogtown and your kin are wiped out, it's plague, not any specific type, but a plague none the less.

[malakai2]

6. How many is too many?

Care to venture a guess? Some people like to play the "too many" game, then tell me that a dog per acre is too many. In some of the more dense and healthy sections I've surveyed, I've seen as many as 100-110 burrows per hectare, which works out to significantly more than one dog per acre. That's the kind of density that black-footed ferrets need to survive. Black-footed ferrets as recently as 100 years ago ranged from Canada to Mexico, western Arizona and Montana to eastern Nebraska. The entirety of global black-footed ferret habitat is now confined to 10 or 11 sites, only three of which have self-sustaining populations, totaling less than 500,000 acres. Something tells me the idea of "too many" is entirely a human construct, and has nothing to do with nature limiting prairie dog numbers with a disease that's only been here for 109 or so years.

Tularemia doesn't cause that kind of mass mortality. In fact, only a couple things do. Poisoning does, and plague, as in Black Plague, Yersinia pestis, does. And guess what? The prairie dog density can be exceedingly low and still sustain a plague outbreak, because the reservoir host isn't prairie dogs, it's a few species of rats and mice. Prairie dogs are an exceptionally poor plague host because it will kill them within two weeks of infection, usually more like five to seven days, with no exceptions. If you live west of the 100th meridian, and you see a sudden, nearly complete wipe out of a prairie dog town that hasn't been poisoned, it's almost certainly plague, as in Black Plague. Not some other plague, or the general dictionary term for a pestilence that kills everyone, but that one specific plague caused by that one species of bacteria.

[InvisibleTouch]

7. This is great additional info, thanks! :)

Are you a wildlife biologist, or just well-read on the subject due to personal interest?

[malakai2]

8. I'm a wildlife biologist

Worked mostly with ferrets and prairie dogs so far in my young career. It's an interesting ecosystem, but the only way to see much of what's going on is to spend an inordinate amount of time in dog towns, looking down the burrows. Either that, or analyzing vegetative productivity stats in the office. Most people are happy to see the prairie dogs and the occasional rattlesnake and call it good.

[TwilightGardener]

3. Good for them--I can't imagine the local government telling me

I MUST poison animals on my own land--that's insane. Prairie dogs are supposed to be there--they have a role in the grassland ecology--and their numbers will hopefully be kept in check by predators, who are also supposed to be there. We're the ones who fucked up the delicate balance. (Well, ranchers.)